


Interlude (A Second To [re]Collect Myself)

by incogneat_oh



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: crying about tim drake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 08:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10382433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incogneat_oh/pseuds/incogneat_oh
Summary: 'Bruce has the fleeting, absurd thought that if he lets go, Tim will shatter, fall to pieces– that he is all that’s holding Tim together.'Or, what should have happened when Bruce got back.





	

It’s late at night and the Manor is silent. 

The master bedroom is dark and peaceful, sheets clean and aired in anticipation of his return. 

For the first time in a long time, Bruce had felt  _right_  going to sleep. In his own bed in his own house, wearing comfortably worn pyjamas that smell faintly of fabric softener. He’d gone to sleep feeling warm in a way he had forgotten he  _could._

He was home.

Which is why, when Bruce wakes, it takes a few moments to determine what’s wrong. It’s still dark, still the middle of the night. The perimeter, he knows, is secure; the alarm sensor is silent on the nightstand beside his pillow. There are no footsteps creaking, no doors opening or closing. No muffled curses when Dick stubs his toe on his way back from a sometime-after-midnight snack. So why did he wake up, so suddenly?

And he realises, after a time, that he can feel someone watching him. He keeps his eyes closed, waiting for the telltale creak of his pushed-to bedroom door, the sound of someone calling out to him. But he hears nothing. 

He says, “Tim." 

The darkness shifts, and there is a muted sound of breath. Tim is stiffened guiltily outside the doorway, Bruce is sure. So he says, opening his eyes, ” _Tim_.“

Bruce’s bedroom door opens, very slightly, with the faintest  _squeak_  of well-oiled hinges. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they do he can make out Tim standing hangdog in the hallway, eyes inky black and wide against his pale skin. "Sorry,” he says, with a slight stutter. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Bruce sits up, sheets pooling around his waist, and he shakes his head. Tim was just checking on him; it’s perfectly understandable. And it is his first night  _properly_ home, since… well, everything.

Tim’s still tensed in the doorway, one hand white-knuckled on the frame. 

When Bruce gestures him forward, he flinches, dropping his hand as though burned. Takes a half-step back on the hallway floor.

“I–” he says.

“Come in,” Bruce tells him, voice rough from sleep. He settles himself against the headboard, and makes a Tim-sized space on the bed for him to sit. 

Tim bites his lip, and looks for a second as if he’s going to leave. But with shuffling feet, he finally crosses the threshold and makes his way to the bed. He hesitates. And then he sits, on the very edge of the mattress. Eyes downcast, he faces away from Bruce.

He’s in a thin t-shirt and a pair of too-long flannel pyjama pants. His feet are bare, and there’s a hint of a bandage poking out from under one sleeve. His hair is untidy, and there’s a patch of colour high in his cheeks.

And Bruce… brushes his fingertips over the boy’s shoulder, says again, “Tim.” And it’s easy enough to shift forward, shift  _Tim,_  and it feels completely natural to pull him into his arms. To press his chin in the juncture of shoulder-and-neck, of fresh-soaped skin and boy-soft hair, the faint scratch of the t-shirt collar against Bruce’s stubble.

Tim is cold. There are no warm patches from sleep, and Bruce wonders exactly how long he was standing in the cold empty hallway. How long he  _would_ have stayed, if Bruce hadn’t woken. If he would have lost his nerve and left, without ever seeing more of Bruce than he could make out through the crack in the door.

It takes a minute, but Tim finally lifts his arms and squeezes back. Wiry, lean muscles and a touch of desperation, Bruce can feel Tim’s hands fisting in the back of his shirt. He feels small.

Then Tim scooches forward, and hides his face in Bruce’s chest. And Bruce… wonders if this is one of the times where silence is okay. If there’s something he should say instead, something that would serve as a comfort to the boy. He decides on the former, and rubs a hand down Tim’s spine, as gentle and soothing as he knows how. 

Tim’s clinging. Bruce… hasn’t had a chance to talk to him, not properly, since he returned. In fact, they’ve barely talked at all. And all Bruce knows is that he’s no longer Robin, that he doesn’t live at home. That something has shifted, vastly, between him and Dick. And whatever it was means they can barely stand in the same room any more.

Bruce wants to know what happened while he was away. A thought that becomes more resolute with each passing second, when he feels the stutter of Tim’s breath, the trembles through his back. He’s crying a little, and holding fast to Bruce. Like he’s afraid to let go.

It takes a long time– far too long, for him to squeeze tighter, say “Hey. Hey,” and, “It’s  _okay_ now.”

Tim’s head pitches forward in something like a nod, but he doesn’t stop from crying. And Tim cries quietly, a small and lonely sound. Little sniffles and hiccups and gasps of air, a spreading wet-patch on the front of Bruce’s clean pyjama shirt. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers thickly, against Bruce’s front. “I’m so sorry.”

And Bruce smooths a hand over Tim’s rumpled hair, the other heavy on his back and he says, “You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.” and he  _means_ it, doesn’t know for sure what Tim thinks he’s apologising for.

And they sit in a silence that’s punctuated by Tim’s tiny muffled sobs, weak, thin sounds that persist long after his muscles have lost their tension and he’s slumped boneless, against Bruce. 

Bruce remembers a time when his children were small. When all it took to comfort Dick or Jason, to chase away their nightmares, was a cuddle and a promise. How he could tuck them up beside him in his bed, and they’d sleep through ‘til morning. But Tim wasn’t Bruce’s, before. And he’s too big now, too grown-up for all the ways he  _isn’t_. 

Bruce has the fleeting, absurd thought that if he lets go, Tim will shatter, fall to pieces– that he is all that’s holding Tim together. Shaking his head to clear the image, he runs a finger thoughtfully over the line of Tim’s shoulders, broader now, says sleep-drunk and wondering, “You  _grew_.”

Tim gives a wet-sounding half-laugh, and Bruce smiles wryly into the hair at the boy’s temple, presses a kiss there. And he thinks about all the things he wished had stayed the same.

It’s probably only a few minutes, but it feels like a long time before there’s movement from the hall.

There in the dark, Dick looks halfway asleep, standing dumbly in the doorway. One hand raised absently to knock on Bruce’s open door, but he’s frozen there, eyes fixed on an oblivious Tim. And over Tim’s head, Bruce meets Dick’s gaze. Shakes his head just once. 

Bruce can read mingled sadness and guilt on every one of Dick’s features, the hand that twitches helplessly towards his younger brother. For a while, he just stays there, still and silent and pale. Watching every hitch in Tim’s shoulders, every soft, pained sound. 

Bruce shushes the boy gently, traces the bones in his back through the thin-fabric shirt. And when he looks back up to the doorway, Dick– mouth twisted bitterly, brow heavy, creeps back into the dark. 

 Tim is dry-eyed, but he’s still breathing shallowly by the time he pulls back from Bruce. He turns away to wipe his face, says simply, voice raw, “I’m so glad you’re back.”

“Me too,” Bruce tells him. 

“I should–” Tim says, and “You have a lot of missed sleep to catch up on.” And for all that this is Bruce’s bedroom, he feels  _dismissed_. 

He says, “Tim–” and gets a faint smile, one completely at odds with the red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. His press-conference smile. And Bruce has the strangest feeling that this moment is slipping away faster than he can catch it. So he says, “We’ll talk tomorrow?" 

Tim nods and stands, out of Bruce’s reach. 

"Come and get me,” Bruce murmurs. “If you–” and he leaves it hanging, awkwardly, between them. 

Tim fidgets, and says, “I am sorry,” but quick, and guilty, tongue tripping over the words. 

Bruce just raises an eyebrow. He says, warmly, “Goodnight, Tim.”

“Goodnight, Bruce,” and Tim stands shadowed in the doorway for at least a minute, long enough for Bruce to get resettled on the bed. And after a moment, when Bruce’s silent question becomes a little more overt, Tim explains, “It’s just good to see you back home. That’s all,” and the door clicks quietly shut behind him.

**END.**

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [tumblr.](http://incogneat-oh.tumblr.com/post/51729907945/interlude-a-second-to-recollect-myself)


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